Expenses, Expenses, Expenses………..

You can look at it yourself; Union work tends to be expensive. Look at the LM2s for the last few years and see what some high ranking officers (and some not so high ranking) charge the Union as “Union-related” expenses. It’s in Black and White.

We do understand that in Union work there must be some expenses, forking over some dough when the Union is lacking in say notebooks or pens or having to buy something “Union related” in an emergency and having to charge the Union for it is perfectly O.K., but some of the numbers are incredible and head scratching at the same time.

For instance in 2010 President John E. Samuelsen had expenses of about $42k, we are sure that as President there are many expenses that just pop up and have to be covered. No problem. But could someone explain why Vernon Thorpe former PAC director has expenses of $41K? That is only one thousand dollars less than the President of the Union. Strange but true.

In 2010, in our current administration, Jose Iglesias of the former administration, charged Local 100 for $15,645. Keep this in mind, he only made $3,340 in Union salary, and that salary was likely retro money owned on our delayed contract. Nice work if you can get it. Roger Toussaint did not take home any salary from the Union in 2010 yet charged the Union $9,139 for that year. So how do two guys who do not work for the Union charge the Union almost $25K? Your guess is good as ours. Maybe they were paid not to come to work.

Going back into the LM2s of 2008 & 2009 more interesting expenses come out: in 2009 acting President Curtis Tate had expenses of $42K, which is very much in line with Samuelsen’s total for 2010. Again, no problem. But elected President Roger Toussaint in 2009 charged the Union for $33K in expenses. So from the President’s office in 2009 over $75K was charged in expenses. That is more than many members make in a year. And if you compare to Samuelsen’s 42K expenses in 2010, it is close to double that.

But there are two expense records that totally defy explanation: call them the Easter Island of Local 100 expense charges, mysterious, unknown and totally unexplainable. One is from 2008 where former Stations Division Chairperson Jamel Chisolm racked up a whopping $13,402 in expenses. If anyone can answer why a Division Chair, not a VP, not a Director, not a top 3 position, can rack up $13,402 in expenses we would sure like to know. In fact Ms. Chisolm was the sixth highest expense gouger in the entire Union for the 2008 fiscal year! How a division chair can have more expenses than most of the Vice presidents and Directors in the Union is an astonishing fact.

But the best, or rather the most amazing account of “expenses gone wild” is ousted Secretary Treasurer Israel “Izzy” Rivera, who in 2010 racked up a whopping $65K in expenses. That is possibly more than anyone else in the history in TWU Local 100! But who knows, no one keeps records of such things. The fact that Izzy was deposed for alleged financial misdoings make these numbers only more fascinating and curious. If you factor in that Izzy only worked in his elected position until September, the month he was removed as Secretary Treasurer, roughly ¾ of the work year, then this probably is one for the record books. If you pro-rate expenses to cover the 3 months he would have worked if not tossed out, he’d have racked up a whopping 86K in expenses. Wow, Union work is sure expensive.